--
Hapless, nonproficient, long-time windows user.
Nothing ever seems to work out of the box as promised.
Vista continues the tradition of "expect another disappointment"


"Mike Hall - MVP" wrote:
[color=blue]
> Dan
>
> The table clearly shows that the only 'upgrade' path is with Vista
> Ultimate.. all others are clean installs..
>
> The OP problem stems from not understanding the backing up of data.. it
> would appear that he made an full image of RC1 as opposed to backing up
> 'files and folders'..
>[/color]

Hey Mike, that's right. I first did a complete backup of RC1. That went
well.
Instantly, I then tried to make backups of files and folders. This was on
the 29th of May. Nothing more could be burned or transferred.

NOW, hey, never mind. I can at least get all my photography off the backup.
I can pull out programs too, most of them. I don't even need the backup
disks.
I do lack my settings and passwords. I don't have any sound on this new
install yet, "No audio devices installed".

But, you know what? The Home Basic install saved a complete image of the
old installation.

How I found out (by fumbling, sure). I began by re-downloading Google's
great freeware Picasa program. Installed slick as always, it asked "begin
indexing images now?" I saw only the Vista sample pictures to be "indexed".

Wellsirs, and instant after Picasa had indexed those few shots, wow,
suddenly there comes up ALL the pictures and home video clips I had.

It was then that I found .oldWindows or whatever it's called in the new
Vista list of files. So, all that stuff that is also on my total backup,
VHB also saved in a separate place.

Did anyone here tell me that outright? Maybe they did---I forget! So much
information has been put to me here and elsewhere.

Anyway, at the least, I have access to my irreplaceable images. I'm very
glad of that.

All I need now to -watch a freakin' DVD- is to have sound. I'll look
through the threads here to see if a remedy for that mystery is to be found.

I'll talk to MS support tomorrow by phone. Maybe I'll get some help.

As it stands: I am not going to be shilling out for Ultimate, not if I can
bloody well help it.

Ed Bott made some very good points, about why NOT to get Microsoft's wmp
codecs into the machine. For this reason, and for the fact that I have zero
use for most of Ultimate's features, I'll be happy just to get sound turned
on, and if I can't somehow extract my old settings and passwords from the
archived RC1 data, then I am set and good to go. And I'll stop bashing
Microsoft for... at least a few days. Ha ha. Thank you all.